Having had a rough night thanks to blaring music until 6:30am, we got up and had our breakfast in the convent library. The usual fayre of bread, jam and eggs and very weak tea was served. The walls were lined with English language books and a table facing a flat screen TV, DVD player and … More A (bit too) exciting road adventure to Maliana
After a good breakfast of banana bread and tea at the guesthouse we headed back to our beach house to pack up and prepare for the wait for a mikrolet back up the hill. We were told they run on the hour first thing in the morning and we were expecting to wait until 9am … More Getting to know the local nuns in Manatuto
We got up early (ish) to take a bus to Bacau. Dili was pretty quiet at this time compared to the rush hour the day before so we were able to cross the road with our backpacks on without getting ourselves killed. A short walk later and we hit the back of the line of … More Dili is Dili and East Timor is East Timor – Baucau
Thursday is the big market day in Baucau so of course we headed there. The market was pretty chaotic, with heaps of buses and mikrolets blocking the road with the roofs loaded right up. Mainly it was veg, flour and grains and kitchen stuff, with shops in tin shacks lining the adjoining streets. Emma bumped … More Baucau markets and doing it tough in Osolata
We decided over dinner that the 3 of us would spend the day exploring Dili. After breakfast we headed out to the Christ statue at the far east of greater Dili. You can see it from the waterfront anywhere in Dili. To get there we hopped in a mikrolet, a micro sized minibus with a … More Hanging out with the UN and NGOs in Dili
Visas. One of the fundamentals of travel, had been carefully worked out and timings carefully scheduled. We even thought of whether we’d need them for transit countries, or so we thought… Then we got to Wellington airport and nearly didn’t go anywhere. We were flying via Sydney to Darwin where we were overnighting before hopping … More Hello summer – first impressions of East Timor
We’re here, we made it – overland from Buenos Aires to Caracas in 4 months, more or less on or following the world’s largest mountain range. When we’ve been sat waiting for hours at bus terminals we devised a way to amuse ourselves and here are the results… We have: Visited 8 countries Been to … More 116 days later…
We said goodbye to the Andes via a 2 hour true winding mountain road through spectacular scenery – huge steep mountains dropping down into a deep gorge. With every metre we descended the temperature rose until eventually we were in hot, dry Barinas. We did the rounds of bus companies for the last time, looking … More Last stop – Caracas
Think Venezuela and you don’t normally think of the Andes, but the last 400km of the Andes does indeed reside here. We’re not talking little mountains either, these puppies are up to 5,000m high. From Maracaibo we took what should have been an 8 hour night bus to Merida. It was by far and away … More Exploring the Venezuelan Andes
Having flagged a bus just outside Tayrona National Park, which incidentally was the worst shed of a bus we have seen in Colombia, we arrived at the border town of Maicao into chaos. There were several men greeting us off the bus shouting “Maricaibo, Maricaibo, Por Puesto, Por Puesto”, traffic all over the place and … More Crossing the border – Maicao, Colombia to Maracaibo, Venezuela
Marie & Emma's Travel Journal 